A Channel Passage and Other Poems Part 1

A Channel Pa.s.sage and Other Poems.

by Algernon Charles Swinburne.

A CHANNEL Pa.s.sAGE

1855

Forth from Calais, at dawn of night, when sunset summer on autumn shone, Fared the steamer alert and loud through seas whence only the sun was gone: Soft and sweet as the sky they smiled, and bade man welcome: a dim sweet hour Gleamed and whispered in wind and sea, and heaven was fair as a field in flower.

Stars fulfilled the desire of the darkling world as with music: the starbright air Made the face of the sea, if aught may make the face of the sea, more fair.

Whence came change? Was the sweet night weary of rest? What anguish awoke in the dark?

Sudden, sublime, the strong storm spake: we heard the thunders as hounds that bark.

Lovelier if aught may be lovelier than stars, we saw the lightnings exalt the sky, Living and l.u.s.trous and rapturous as love that is born but to quicken and lighten and die.

Heaven's own heart at its highest of delight found utterance in music and semblance in fire: Thunder on thunder exulted, rejoicing to live and to satiate the night's desire.

And the night was alive and anhungered of life as a tiger from toils cast free: And a rapture of rage made joyous the spirit and strength of the soul of the sea.

All the weight of the wind bore down on it, freighted with death for fraught: And the keen waves kindled and quickened as things transfigured or things distraught.

And madness fell on them laughing and leaping; and madness came on the wind: And the might and the light and the darkness of storm were as storm in the heart of Ind.

Such glory, such terror, such pa.s.sion, as lighten and harrow the far fierce East, Rang, shone, spake, shuddered around us: the night was an altar with death for priest.

The channel that sunders England from sh.o.r.es where never was man born free Was clothed with the likeness and thrilled with the strength and the wrath of a tropic sea.

As a wild steed ramps in rebellion, and rears till it swerves from a backward fall, The strong ship struggled and reared, and her deck was upright as a sheer cliff's wall.

Stern and prow plunged under, alternate: a glimpse, a recoil, a breath, And she sprang as the life in a G.o.d made man would spring at the throat of death.

Three glad hours, and it seemed not an hour of supreme and supernal joy, Filled full with delight that revives in remembrance a sea-bird's heart in a boy.

For the central crest of the night was cloud that thundered and flamed, sublime As the splendour and song of the soul everlasting that quickens the pulse of time.

The glory beholden of man in a vision, the music of light overheard, The rapture and radiance of battle, the life that abides in the fire of a word, In the midmost heaven enkindled, was manifest far on the face of the sea, And the rage in the roar of the voice of the waters was heard but when heaven breathed free.

Far eastward, clear of the covering of cloud, the sky laughed out into light From the rims of the storm to the sea's dark edge with flames that were flowerlike and white.

The leaping and luminous blossoms of live sheet lightning that laugh as they fade From the cloud's black base to the black wave's brim rejoiced in the light they made.

Far westward, throned in a silent sky, where life was in l.u.s.trous tune, Shone, sweeter and surer than morning or evening, the steadfast smile of the moon.

The limitless heaven that enshrined them was lovelier than dreams may behold, and deep As life or as death, revealed and transfigured, may shine on the soul through sleep.

All glories of toil and of triumph and pa.s.sion and pride that it yearns to know Bore witness there to the soul of its likeness and kinship, above and below.

The joys of the lightnings, the songs of the thunders, the strong sea's labour and rage, Were tokens and signs of the war that is life and is joy for the soul to wage.

No thought strikes deeper or higher than the heights and the depths that the night made bare, Illimitable, infinite, awful and joyful, alive in the summit of air-- Air stilled and thrilled by the tempest that thundered between its reign and the sea's, Rebellious, rapturous, and transient as faith or as terror that bows men's knees.

No love sees loftier and fairer the form of its G.o.dlike vision in dreams Than the world shone then, when the sky and the sea were as love for a breath's length seems-- One utterly, mingled and mastering and mastered and laughing with love that subsides As the glad mad night sank panting and satiate with storm, and released the tides.

In the dense mid channel the steam-souled ship hung hovering, a.s.sailed and withheld As a soul born royal, if life or if death be against it, is thwarted and quelled.

As the glories of myriads of glowworms in l.u.s.trous gra.s.s on a boundless lawn Were the glories of flames phosphoric that made of the water a light like dawn.

A thousand Phosphors, a thousand Hespers, awoke in the churning sea, And the swift soft hiss of them living and dying was clear as a tune could be; As a tune that is played by the fingers of death on the keys of life or of sleep, Audible alway alive in the storm, too fleet for a dream to keep: Too fleet, too sweet for a dream to recover and thought to remember awake: Light subtler and swifter than lightning, that whispers and laughs in the live storm's wake, In the wild bright wake of the storm, in the dense loud heart of the labouring hour, A harvest of stars by the storm's hand reaped, each fair as a star-shaped flower.

And sudden and soft as the pa.s.sing of sleep is the pa.s.sing of tempest seemed When the light and the sound of it sank, and the glory was gone as a dream half dreamed.

The glory, the terror, the pa.s.sion that made of the midnight a miracle, died, Not slain at a stroke, nor in gradual reluctance abated of power and of pride; With strong swift subsidence, awful as power that is wearied of power upon earth, As a G.o.d that were wearied of power upon heaven, and were fain of a new G.o.d's birth, The might of the night subsided: the tyranny kindled in darkness fell: And the sea and the sky put off them the rapture and radiance of heaven and of h.e.l.l.

The waters, heaving and hungering at heart, made way, and were wellnigh fain, For the ship that had fought them, and wrestled, and revelled in labour, to cease from her pain.

And an end was made of it: only remembrance endures of the glad loud strife; And the sense that a rapture so royal may come not again in the pa.s.sage of life.

THE LAKE OF GAUBE

The sun is lord and G.o.d, sublime, serene, And sovereign on the mountains: earth and air Lie p.r.o.ne in pa.s.sion, blind with bliss unseen By force of sight and might of rapture, fair As dreams that die and know not what they were.

The lawns, the gorges, and the peaks, are one Glad glory, thrilled with sense of unison In strong compulsive silence of the sun.

Flowers dense and keen as midnight stars aflame And living things of light like flames in flower That glance and flash as though no hand might tame Lightnings whose life outshone their stormlit hour And played and laughed on earth, with all their power Gone, and with all their joy of life made long And harmless as the lightning life of song, Shine sweet like stars when darkness feels them strong.

The deep mild purple flaked with moonbright gold That makes the scales seem flowers of hardened light, The flamelike tongue, the feet that noon leaves cold, The kindly trust in man, when once the sight Grew less than strange, and faith bade fear take flight, Outlive the little harmless life that shone And gladdened eyes that loved it, and was gone Ere love might fear that fear had looked thereon.

Fear held the bright thing hateful, even as fear, Whose name is one with hate and horror, saith That heaven, the dark deep heaven of water near, Is deadly deep as h.e.l.l and dark as death.

The rapturous plunge that quickens blood and breath With pause more sweet than pa.s.sion, ere they strive To raise again the limbs that yet would dive Deeper, should there have slain the soul alive.

As the bright salamander in fire of the noonshine exults and is glad of his day, The spirit that quickens my body rejoices to pa.s.s from the sunlight away, To pa.s.s from the glow of the mountainous flowerage, the high mult.i.tudinous bloom, Far down through the fathomless night of the water, the gladness of silence and gloom.

Death-dark and delicious as death in the dream of a lover and dreamer may be, It clasps and encompa.s.ses body and soul with delight to be living and free: Free utterly now, though the freedom endure but the s.p.a.ce of a perilous breath, And living, though girdled about with the darkness and coldness and strangeness of death: Each limb and each pulse of the body rejoicing, each nerve of the spirit at rest, All sense of the soul's life rapture, a pa.s.sionate peace in its blindness blest.

So plunges the downward swimmer, embraced of the water unfathomed of man, The darkness unplummeted, icier than seas in midwinter, for blessing or ban; And swiftly and sweetly, when strength and breath fall short, and the dive is done, Shoots up as a shaft from the dark depth shot, sped straight into sight of the sun; And sheer through the snow-soft water, more dark than the roof of the pines above, Strikes forth, and is glad as a bird whose flight is impelled and sustained of love.

As a sea-mew's love of the sea-wind breasted and ridden for rapture's sake Is the love of his body and soul for the darkling delight of the soundless lake: As the silent speed of a dream too living to live for a thought's s.p.a.ce more Is the flight of his limbs through the still strong chill of the darkness from sh.o.r.e to sh.o.r.e.

Might life be as this is and death be as life that casts off time as a robe, The likeness of infinite heaven were a symbol revealed of the lake of Gaube.

Whose thought has fathomed and measured The darkness of life and of death, The secret within them treasured, The spirit that is not breath?

Whose vision has yet beholden The splendour of death and of life?

Though sunset as dawn be golden, Is the word of them peace, not strife?

Deep silence answers: the glory We dream of may be but a dream, And the sun of the soul wax h.o.a.ry As ashes that show not a gleam.

But well shall it be with us ever Who drive through the darkness here, If the soul that we live by never, For aught that a lie saith, fear.

THE PROMISE OF THE HAWTHORN

Spring sleeps and stirs and trembles with desire Pure as a babe's that nestles toward the breast.

The world, as yet an all unstricken lyre, With all its chords alive and all at rest, Feels not the sun's hand yet, but feels his breath And yearns for love made perfect. Man and bird, Thrilled through with hope of life that casts out death, Wait with a rapturous patience till his word Speak heaven, and flower by flower and tree by tree Give back the silent strenuous utterance. Earth, Alive awhile and joyful as the sea, Laughs not aloud in joy too deep for mirth, Presageful of perfection of delight, Till all the unborn green buds be born in white.

HAWTHORN TIDE

I

Dawn is alive in the world, and the darkness of heaven and of earth Subsides in the light of a smile more sweet than the loud noon's mirth, Spring lives as a babe lives, glad and divine as the sun, and unsure If aught so divine and so glad may be worshipped and loved and endure.

A soft green glory suffuses the love-lit earth with delight, And the face of the noon is fair as the face of the star-clothed night.

Earth knows not and doubts not at heart of the glories again to be: Sleep doubts not and dreams not how sweet shall the waking beyond her be.

A whole white world of revival awaits May's whisper awhile, Abides and exults in the bud as a soft hushed laugh in a smile.

As a maid's mouth laughing with love and subdued for the love's sake, May Shines and withholds for a little the word she revives to say.

When the clouds and the winds and the sunbeams are warring and strengthening with joy that they live, Spring, from reluctance enkindled to rapture, from slumber to strife, Stirs, and repents, and is winter, and weeps, and awakes as the frosts forgive, And the dark chill death of the woodland is troubled, and dies into life.

And the honey of heaven, of the hives whence night feeds full on the springtide's breath, Fills fuller the lips of the l.u.s.trous air with delight in the dawn: Each blossom enkindling with love that is life and subsides with a smile into death Arises and lightens and sets as a star from her sphere withdrawn.

Not sleep, in the rapture of radiant dreams, when sundawn smiles on the night, Shows earth so sweet with a splendour and fragrance of life that is love: Each blade of the glad live gra.s.s, each bud that receives or rejects the light, Salutes and responds to the marvel of Maytime around and above.

Joy gives thanks for the sight and the savour of heaven, and is humbled With awe that exults in thanksgiving: the towers of the flowers of the trees Shine sweeter than snows that the hand of the season has melted and crumbled, And fair as the foam that is lesser of life than the loveliest of these.